


reciprocation

by wildcard_47



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Awkwardness, Blowjobs, Just Two Dudes Humping In A Ship Cause They're Not Gay, M/M, denial is a river in egypt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 21:17:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15759861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Francis goes back to visitErebuson another cold, lonely night.





	reciprocation

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by **acaramelmacchiato** 's [Because the sun had set](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738408), as well as the [postscript on Tumblr.](http://bro-stoevsky.tumblr.com/post/177221871144/because-the-sun-had-set-a-postscript) Mainly because I could not STAND the thought of Fitzjames and Crozier not having at least one more awkward tryst!

The very evening three men were whipped aboard _Terror_ for several heinous crimes, including insubordination, neglect of duty, disrespect, brutality, kidnapping and dirtiness, Francis Crozier found himself alone and sleepless in _Terror’s_ ward room in the middle of the night. He was about half as drunk as he wanted to be, with very little whiskey left and an urge to walkabout.

So, informing only Jopson, who had of course heard the pacing in the great cabin, and two Marines on duty, who refused even to appear complacent of their Captain's safety on the ice, given the day’s events, Francis made his way over to _Erebus_ with an escorting party, in search of more whiskey and perhaps a moment’s peace.

Once the Marines left him to his business, what he found instead was bloody James Fitzjames, sitting at _Erebus’s_ wardroom table with the company of only a lit lamp and what appeared to be a tumbler of some thrice-damned clear alcohol.

Probably gin. Blast it all.

“Captain Crozier.” James barely glanced up; seemed sullen but not necessarily surprised. “You know the state of the whiskey stores, well as I do.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Fitzjames.” Sore from the walk and from the continued lack of whiskey, Francis was in a fouler mood than usual. His impatience only grew in the face of James’s continued coldness. “Why in God’s name are you not abed at this hour?”

“You know, Francis, were I a more fortuitous man, I should imagine you are come to me as Morpheus to-night.”

Stone-drunk, obviously. Perhaps even more so than Francis, given the dearth of _Terror’s_ stores. “What the blazes are you talking about, man?”

“Not ten minutes after I have committed to leaving my sleepless berth and drowning myself in self-pity, and here you are appeared, as if summoned on the wind.” A snort of derisive laughter. “What a precarious position.”

“Fine hour you’ve chosen for a few tipples,” Francis said sourly. As ever, he did not appreciate being mocked for sport.

“Two tipples only,” corrected James with a raised hand. “All after no supper. Anyway. Pilfer your bottle from down below and get on with it, then, Francis.”

For a brief moment, Francis took pity on the man. No sleep, two glasses of gin and no supper? What the blazes had he been doing all evening?

And then he remembered – the hearing. The flogging. All normal duties suspended.

Christ above. Perhaps the absence of whiskey had made him worse than he knew.

“Go to bed, then, James,” he finally said, clearing his throat. “Else you’ll face a hell of a headache in the morning.”

“You are kindness itself, Francis.” Fitzjames snorted again, although clearly not in amusement this time. The expression on his face had turned as fraught and shattered as thin ice. “Lord, my pathetic desperation truly knows no bounds.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

Fitzjames glanced up, met Crozier’s suspicious gaze with a resigned sigh, and gestured toward the officers’ table. “You put your hand on my shoulder, just there, as I swallowed you up. I – I initiated such intimacies, encouraged them, even, and now you’ll not give me the time of day. _That_ is what I mean. A purgatory of my own miserable creation.”

Horrified, Francis blushed all the way down to his boots.

Fitzjames just shrugged, although the glum look did not shift from his face. “We may as well speak about it outright. As you’ve hardly looked at me since.”

“I’ve hardly – ” Francis was still agape “ – this is why you’ve been – so cold? Truly?”

“‘S always cold.”

“Christ above, you bloody halfwit,” Francis snapped, “you are fully aware that I do not refer to the god-damned icicles in this particular instance!”

James did not appear to understand what Francis meant, and continued his doleful droning. “If I have not been – if you think so wretchedly ill of me for such acts, Francis – ”

“Oh, for god’s sake, James, shut your gob and let me speak!” Furious at having such an intimate moment flung in his face, Francis threw off his overcoat, not even bothering to hang it on a peg. “Here is what stings most, you absolute fucking oaf: ever since recalling what transpired that night, you have become abominably curt, and – and absent, and short-tempered, all with me alone! No one else! You say I did not look at you? If that is truly so, it is because _you_ are the offended party so damned keen on avoiding my hated presence!” He croaked out a harsh sigh. “By god, James, how can you be so ignorant? I was trying to spare you!”

“What?”

“Perhaps ‘s because I am a figure of scorn to all among us. Perhaps because I was too damn paralytic to – to – ”

“Hate you? S – oh, what the devil do you mean now, Francis?”

“Well! I had meant to – to return such favors, obviously. I’m not so loutish as to deny you equal share!”

Silence. Fitzjames stared at him, clearly stunned.

“Equal share?”

“That’s it, then. Get your trousers open.”

The words sailed forth from Francis’s mouth before he could censure them.

James’s mouth fell open. “I beg your pardon?”

“You won’t even needs beg. I’ll fellate you here, just as you are.”

Striding forward, Francis dropped to his knees in front of James’s chair.

“Good Christ. Really, Francis.”

“No,” argued Francis. Without further ado, he opened James’s trousers, fumbling first with the button-fly and then James’s linens before freeing his second’s prick to the cold air. The man was already half-hard. “I will do. ‘S only fair.”

“Francis, please, you need prove nothing to – ”

Leaning forward, Francis licked the tip of James’s bare prick, experimental, and then took the head fully into his mouth.

James made a strangled noise, went rigid, and all protests stopped at once.

The sensation of another man’s cock in his mouth ought to have been strange. Unnatural. But James was hot and twitching and visibly thrilled to the simplest touch, and Francis had never felt more powerful or more naughty in his entire life. No one else on _Erebus_ or _Terror_ could make James Fitzjames – handsomest man in the Royal Navy and hero of Zhenjiang – look like this. Sound like this.

Only Francis.

“Oh, god.” Fitzjames had one hand over his mouth, and one desperately clutching Francis’s rucked-up shirtsleeve. The desperation in his furrowed brow and the debauched clench of tensed fingers in damp cotton sent a frisson of shock deep into Francis’s belly. “Oh, god, Francis, please.”

Such a command alone was enough to drive him mad. Each successive noise he coaxed from James’ lips and body were obscene. The slick slide of his mouth and palm along James’s bare cock – the thickening of his own breath when he got down near the hilt – the creak of frozen floorboards against his aching knees. He could not help palming himself in his free hand as he worked, nor keep several soft moans from escaping his lips.

“Mmph.”

James, above, shocked yet faint. “Yes. Faster.”

And there was nothing cold nor ashamed in the piercing gaze James directed him now; indeed, his half-lidded, lust-blown eyes flicked to Francis’s own with temerity as Francis swallowed James’s long, thin cock like a dirty dockside whore.

Jesus God, even the sheer thought of such an act was far more erotic than it had any right to be. James’ prick was in Francis’s mouth and Francis had his own in hand as best he could, clumsily stroking. All the while, James was writhing with pleasure in that stupid stiff-backed chair, muffling gasps with both palms as his hips stuttered up in a graceless rhythm.

 _“Christ,”_ James finally hissed.

And he came just like that, flooding Francis’s mouth.

Francis choked slightly with the shock of it, at first, but still managed to swallow and collect himself before pulling away. He could not help glancing back at the closed door, just in case. There were few steps in the passage beyond the wardroom at this hour. Mostly just the sounds of sailors snoring and coughing and farting drifting down from the orlop deck.

 _You taste like the ocean,_ he wanted to say first.

“I, ah. I should – ”

“Wait,” gasped James, and pulled him forward, hands clutching at Francis’s shoulders. “Please, wait. Don’t – ”

And he pulled Francis up into a searing kiss, paired with a knowing hand that snuck just inside his linens, and squeezed Francis’s cock hard enough to tease. Under this attention, Francis stumbled forward, his knees trembled under him, and within half a minute he was thrusting into James’s hand, completely undone.

When it was finished, once again, Francis fumbled for the next-nearest chair, pulling it out against the floor with a harsh scraping sound.

“Well. Er.”

“If you thank me, and then promptly run screaming into the night, Francis,” James said primly, before Francis could in fact vocalize vague appreciation for these renewed affections, “I’ll lash out at you far worse than the nine-tailed cat, come morning.”

“No, James.” Francis deliberated his options for several seconds, then tried for a salvo of humor, black though it was. “You’ll not hear me scream in the night unless that damned bear beast’s come for second supper.”

“Lord, Francis!” James put his head in both hands with a groan, although Francis still glimpsed the briefest curve of a smile on his second’s face. “Hedylogos you certainly are not.”

“Well.” Francis just shrugged. “Perhaps I am Anteros, then. Or Pothos. Whichever of the two was best connected to Dionysus. I confess I did not copy my Hesiod very dutifully as a boy.”

“Augh.” James lifted his head, shook it side-to-side in a long-suffering manner. “Don’t.”

Leaning over and sniffing James’s half-full glass to confirm its contents – ‘t’was gin, good buggering Christ, no – Francis straightened up, and clapped a hand to his second’s shoulder. This done, he strode across the room and picked up his greatcoat.

Summoning a smile to his face after donning the garment, he tried to seem pleasant enough to pass muster. Perhaps _Erebus’s_ kitchens had yet a bottle or two of whiskey to be spared.

“Goodnight then, James.”


End file.
